Post subject: Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2003 10:37 am

Joined: Fri Oct 22, 1999 11:01 pmPosts: 17498Location: SF Bay Area

Quote:

New theater named for its benefactors

Sid Smith and John von Rhein Chicago Tribune

Chicago's long-awaited Music and Dance Theater now boasts a more personalized name: the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance. <a href=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/yahoo/chi-0306040192jun04,1,5397777.story?coll=chi-newsaol-headlines target=_blank>more</a>

It is wonderful that people show such generosity to the Arts, especially in these cash-strapped times.

However, I do not think they are doing the venue any favours with - The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance. I find the inclusion of the initials almost unbelievable - the risk of being confused with another Joan and Irving Harris does not seem great.

Just think about an interview, "So tell us what's coming up at the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance." It sounds like Monty Python.

I suspect that the box office is not going to give the full name to phone bookers. My guess is that "Harris Theater" is what they'll be saying.

Speaking of which, I have a friend whose last name is Dickman. He has an uncle named Richard who is often referred to by his nickname. Now, I wonder if any organization would want to name their theater after him even if he gives tons of money...

Well there's always the offspring of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, who have hyphenated names, who I think should marry one of the offspring of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, who also have hyphenated names, and who can grow up and endow the Kennedy-Schlossberg-Shriver-Schwarzenegger Center for the Performing Arts!

Avant-garde dancemaker Merce Cunningham and an all-female mariachi troupe are just a hint of the diverse offerings planned for the inaugural season at the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater in Millennium Park. <a href=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/yahoo/chi-0307310152jul31,1,4021516.story?coll=chi-newsaol-headlines target=_blank>more</a>

Chicago's new theater for midsize music and dance companies easily could have been a wallflower of a building, drooping in the background alongside the grand metallic bouquet of Frank Gehry's Millennium Park bandshell. But the theater turns out to be something else: a solid, sometimes soaring example of "stealth architecture," a mostly underground building that packs far more aesthetic wallop than its modest, above ground profile lets on.

At the age of 93, the redoubtable philanthropist Irving B. Harris is stiff of body but flexible of mind. But when asked why he had agreed to pony up the staggering sum of $39 million toward the cost of Chicago's $52.7-million Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Music and Dance Theater, which has its gala opening next Saturday, the noted Chicago industrialist kept his lips closed and extended a long arm toward his wife of 29 years.

For so, so long, the announcements came regularly, followed by just as regular a delay. The site changed several times, but not before a groundbreaking ceremony was scheduled and rescheduled every six months.

Meanwhile, the projected price tag nearly doubled from $33 million to $52.7 million. Skeptics, and they were plentiful, doubted the Music and Dance Theater -- almost from the get-go stuck with the unfortunate acronym "MAD"-- would ever really be built.

Long frustrated in their efforts to secure a high-quality, centrally located venue in downtown Chicago they can call their own, the midsize musical organizations that are among the founding companies of the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance regard the handsome new hall's gala opening on Saturday night as a watershed event.

And while the needs of Chicago Opera Theater, the Chicago Sinfonietta, Performing Arts Chicago, Music of the Baroque and the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists vary from group to group, they are united by their common quest for a state-of-the-art performance space that is worthy of the music they produce.

Chicago -- As I read various stories on the new Joan W. & Irving B. Harris Music and Dance Theater ("Joan and Irving Harris' long dance-- How the marriage of wealth and arts advocacy resulted in the Music and Dance Theater," Arts & Entertainment, Nov. 2), I thought to myself, "Can Chicago really support dance the way New York City can? Are people genuinely interested in the craft and in the process of putting together a performance?

There obviously are people in Chicago who do love and understand that dance and music are art forms that are crucial to a fully enlightened, educated community. Dance, for example, is an integration of history, literature and music and can be a pure expression of human experience.

The glitterati were out in force Saturday night as the curtain finally rose on the 1500-seat Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park -- designed to be the new home for many of Chicago's mid-size performing arts companies and presenting organizations.

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